The Curator of All Things

Google Art and Culture x The Fan Museum: We Wear Culture

In August 2016, I started working with The Fan Museum in London on a project in collaboration with Google Cultural Institute: We Wear Culture.

We Wear Culture is a global fashion project by Google. The digital company made available online for free fashion-related collections of tens of museums, schools, archives and fashion institutions around the world. We Wear Culture ‘brings you the stories behind your clothes’ as they say themselves. You should have a look, if you haven’t yet, it’s quite incredible.

I managed the project for The Fan Museum. My role consisted in uploading high quality images for the items chosen to appear on the platform, to write their captions and to create four digital exhibitions based on them, called ‘stories’:

SEDUCED: Fans and the Art of Advertising

The Golden Age: Eighteenth Century Fans

Fans: Flamboyant Beginnings

Luxury and Excess: Mid-to-Late Nineteenth Century Fans

I was reporting to The Fan Museum curator and worked closely with the curatorial assistant at the museum. Plus, I was the bridge between the museum and the Google team.

I learnt a lot from that experience. First, on fans in terms of analysis and history. Secondly, and most importantly, on working as a freelancer for a museum, this being a first important project. I had the chance to work with an incredible team at The Fan Museum who made it easy for me. Working in collaboration with Google was also rewarding; learning how to talk to an online audience in comparison to a museum one. Moreover, this particular job opened my eyes on the reach of today’s world and on how cultural institutions can use digital practices at their advantage.